The Spend Ratio Bid Model component allows you to take control of your campaign’s spending pattern. You can specify how much of a campaign’s total budget you’d like to allocate to each Creative, Location, or Inventory dimension that your campaign is targeting.

Note that a higher Spend Ratio percentage doesn’t determine whether the campaign will prioritize spending on a particular dimension over another. Instead, it signals the campaign to stop spending on a dimension once a certain percentage of the campaign’s budget is fulfilled.

Spend Ratios are one of the three Bid Model components that you can manage for your campaigns. Refer to Bid Modifier overview and Dimension Priority overview for more details on the other ways that you can apply Bid Model settings.

All advertisers can apply Spend Ratios to a campaign; however, a campaign must meet each of these conditions before it becomes eligible.

*This limitation is due to the fact that a single impression may belong to more than one Publisher Category. You can, however, apply Spend Ratios to campaigns that are targeting Open Exchange inventory and/or Deal IDs. Refer to Supported dimensions for a full list of supported dimension categories and subcategories.

The steps you’ll follow to add or edit a Bid Model setting will differ based on the dimension category for which you’d like to apply the Dimension Priority, Bid Modifier, or Spend Ratio.

Refer to the dedicated resources linked below to learn how to apply a Spend Ratio or another Bid Model component based on the dimension category.

A strict Spend Ratio is a firm percentage of your campaign’s total budget that you’re willing to spend for each individual item that you’re targeting within the same dimension category (Creative, Location, Inventory). The campaign will spend up to this allocated budget for each dimension unless it’s unable to for any reason. While you can designate any percentage of your campaign’s budget to each item, the total Spend Ratios for a dimension category must equal exactly 100%.

Note that you can only choose a strict Spend Ratio if no Dimension Priority is assigned to the same dimension(s).

An advertiser wants to apply Bid Model settings to the Inventory dimension category. They specify a strict Spend Ratio for two Deal IDs: 70% for Deal ID 1, and 30% for Deal ID 2.

The campaign will stop serving ads targeted for Deal ID 1 once it spends 70% of the campaign’s total budget on those ad placements, and for Deal ID 2 once it spends 30%.

A flexible Spend Ratio defines how much you’d like to spend for each individual item that you’re targeting within the same dimension category (Creative, Location, Inventory). But, unlike with a strict Spend Ratio, a flexible Spend Ratio will reallocate budget to lower-priority items if it’s unable to spend the maximum allocation for any reason. In other words, a flexible Spend Ratio is a guideline with the ultimate goal of spending the full campaign budget.

While you can designate any percentage of your campaign’s budget to each item, the total Spend Ratios for a dimension category must equal or exceed 100%.

An advertiser wants to apply Bid Model settings to the Location dimension category. They specify a flexible Spend Ratio for three ZIP codes: 100% for ZIP code 1, 80% for ZIP code 2, and 70% for ZIP code 3. With a flexible Spend Ratio, the platform can serve a budget of up to those percentages for the ZIP code that’s associated with them.

The Dimension Priority Bid Model component is required for dimensions that are assigned a flexible Spend Ratio. The advertiser chooses for the platform to prioritize ZIP code 1, followed by ZIP code 2 and ZIP code 3.

*Refer to Others for more information.

With the Dimension Priority and flexible Spend Ratio dimensions both applied, any of these outcomes are possible based on the available bid requests and other factors:

These possible outcomes illustrate that a waterfall approach is applied to dimensions that are assigned both a Dimension Priority and a flexible Spend Ratio.

Others is listed in the Bid Model table any time you choose to apply Bid Model settings to only certain dimensions in a dimension category. In other words, Others aggregates all of the items you’re targeting in the same dimension category that don’t have a Spend Ratio, Dimension Priority, or Bid Modifier applied to them. It may also include items that your campaign isn’t directly targeting, but that appeared in its serving data within the past three months.

You can apply the desired Spend Ratio percentages to certain dimensions, and use the Others field to bring the sum of your strict Spend Ratio percentages up to the required 100%. Refer to the example below for more details on how the Others field works.

An advertiser creates a campaign and targets the following five states:

They want to define a strict Spend Ratio for the Arizona (50%) and Alaska (25%) dimensions, but don’t have a preferred Spend Ratio for the other states that their campaign is targeting:

The campaign will stop serving ads targeted for Alaska once it spends 50% of the campaign’s total budget on those ad placements, and for Arizona once it spends 25%. If these thresholds are never reached during the campaign duration, then this campaign will underspend. Regularly monitor performance to update the campaign’s Spend Ratio or other Bid Model components, as needed.

Bid Modeling can be applied to one Location dimension category (State, City, or ZIP Code) at a time. Since cities are subsets of states—and ZIP codes are subsets of cities—ad serving might only be possible for certain dimensions that your campaign is targeting.

Refer to the examples below for more information on how Bid Model settings work for each Location dimension category, and in flexible and strict environments.

When strict Spend Ratios are applied to Location dimensions, ad serving may be disabled for certain targeted dimensions.

In this example, an advertiser creates a campaign and targets five states:

The campaign also targets the following three cities:

The advertiser wants to apply Bid Model settings to a Location dimension category, and chooses States. They add the following Spend Ratios and dimensions:

*In this example, Texas and Oregon are captured in the Others category. With a strict Spend Ratio of 0%, ad serving is enabled for these states and any other states that appeared in the campaign’s serving data over the past three-month period. The advertiser is unable to set a Spend Ratio of 0% for Others because those states that appeared in the campaign’s serving data have already served impressions.

The campaign is targeting one city that isn’t located in any of the modeled states: Seattle, Washington. As a result, ad serving is disabled for this city regardless of the campaign’s pacing performance.

When strict Spend Ratios are applied to Location dimensions, ad serving may be enabled for certain dimensions that the campaign is targeting, but which aren’t included in the campaign’s modeled States, Cities, or ZIP Codes.

In this example, an advertiser creates a campaign and targets five states:

The campaign also targets the following three cities:

The advertiser wants to apply Bid Model settings to a Location dimension category, and chooses States. They add the following Spend Ratios, Dimension Priorities, and dimensions:

*The unmodeled states (Texas and Arizona) are captured in Others.

The campaign attempts to fill its budget with the highest-priority dimensions as outlined in the Key terms and concepts: Flexible section above. Due to pacing behind, ad serving is ultimately enabled for all three modeled State dimensions: California, Florida, and New York, and the unmodeled states captured in Others.

As a reminder, the campaign is targeting the Seattle, Washington city, which isn’t included in any of the three modeled State dimensions. However, the campaign continues to pace behind after ad serving is enabled for all Priority 1, Priority 2, Priority 3, and Priority 4 dimensions. As a result, ad serving is enabled for the Seattle, Washington City dimension in an attempt to spend the campaign’s budget in full.